Video Analysis
Saturday, August 16, 2008 at 11:53PM 
Back at the hotel after our Friday night team dinner the girls, and many of the parent group, converged on the wide screen TV in the hotel lobby to watch the video of our Sting game.
I had the video camera wired directly into the TV and sat in front of the group rewinding and slow-moing through the game highlighting individual and team mistakes and successes. It was tremendously beneficial to the girls as they've never really seen themselves in action from this overhead perspective. I was able to point out many off the ball problems we have, thanks to the wide field view the elevated camera gave us. Some of the girls took the constructive criticism in front of the group well, some I know didn't. It was important for me to take in to account the different personalities and mental toughness of each of the girls if I "called them out" in this setting and pointed out mistakes. No one is perfect. We're all going to make mistakes and I don't care about the mistakes at this point. What I do care about is if you can, with my help, recognize the mistakes and work to minimize their frequency in the future.
It was a mental dance for me, watching the video to find highlight points for the girls (which came every 10 ro 15 seconds), remembering who I had called out, how they had reacted, and making sure that I would also publically highlight something that person did well.
All in all though the girls really enjoyed watching the game. Many wanted to watch it again when we were done but it was getting late.
I think the video and analysis was eye opening for many of the parents watching with us also as 1) they usually see the game from a field level perspective, and 2) are usually on the opposite side of the field from us and don't hear the coaching that goes on throughout the game, and due to lack of experience with the sport, may not fully understand what I'm asking the girls to do, how I'm asking them to play, what I'm looking for technically and tactically, etc - ideas that they were better able to pick up watching and listening to my comments to the girls watching.
